The Grappling Monthly Podcast

The Grappling Monthly Podcast celebrates the art, the community, and the culture of grappling. Join host Sébastien Maniatopoulos as he chats with guests from around the grappling world. Learn about each guest’s personal grappling journey, and their views on the current state and future of grappling, the business side of the grappling arts, cross-training, nutrition, and much more!

The Grappling Monthly Podcast is a sports podcast hosted by SebDM, with 56 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

SebDM hosts The Grappling Monthly Podcast, a sports show with 56 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #57

  Leave Your Ego At The Door | A Conversation with Prof. Rodrigo Alves - Brave Martail Arts Institute

  Aug 19, 202652 min

  "Your body type doesn't matter." Professor Rodrigo Alves is the head instructor and co-owner of Brave Martial Arts Institute in Ottawa, an Alliance affiliate. He started Brazilian jiu jitsu in Campinas, Brazil in 2002, at seventeen, after years of soccer. He spent eleven years as a student before his black belt, began teaching in 2012, and moved to Canada in 2019. He is direct about why the sport speaks to him. He describes what learning BJJ looked like in Brazil when he began, what was expected of a beginner on day one, and what that approach looks like nowadays. The conversation ranges from Prof. Alves' take on lineage and what happens when your professor changes affiliation, to owning a BJJ school in a new language, new country, and during COVID. Whether you're a beginner or experience jiu-jitsu practitioner, there's something here for you. Many thanks to Prof. Rodrigo Alves for taking the time to share his story on The Grappling Monthly Podcast. Recorded on site at Brave Martial Arts Institute in Ottawa. 2161 Thurston Dr Ottawa ON K1G 6C9 Phone: (613) 319-7951 E-mail: info@bravemai.com Website: www.bravemai.com About Grappling Monthly Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport. The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community. Grappling Monthly publishes across YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and major podcast platforms. Subscribe and turn on notifications. IG: @grapplingmonthly For sponsorships and collaborations: grapplingmonthly@gmail.com #bjj #jiujitsu #jiujitsulifestyle #martialarts #alliancejiujitsu #ottawa #canada

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  Episode #56

  What It Takes To Be The Best | A Conversation with Pierre-Olivier Leclerc

  Aug 12, 202653 min

  Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Pierre-Olivier Leclerc on 12 years at Tristar in Montreal, nogi competition, teaching, and training at 33 with 75 in mind. He walked into Tristar Gym as a white belt at 21 and never left. He now teaches at three Montreal academies and actively competes in no gi jiu-jitsu in major competitions. In this episode: - What an edge in nogi grappling used to cost, and what replaced it now the information is free - Making a living in BJJ: part time work, seminars, and a market with far more black belts in it - How he builds a class, mixing systematized position work with constraints and situational rounds - Training volume at 33, and why he treats rehab as sport science rather than softness - Scouting, IBJJF, and why he stopped pulling guard - The word sacrifice, and why he will not use it about himself Recorded on site at Mizu Studios in Montreal, Quebec. Guest Pierre-Olivier Leclerc Instagram: www.instagram.com/@leclercbjj # BJJ #NoGi #GrapplingMonthly #bjjlifestyle #jiujitsu About Grappling Monthly Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport. The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community. Grappling Monthly publishes across YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and major podcast platforms. Subscribe and turn on notifications. IG and TikTok: @grapplingmonthly For sponsorships and collaborations: grapplingmonthly@gmail.com

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  Episode #55

  Art of De-Escalation | A Conversation with Professor Jay Zeballos of Jean-Jacques Machado Academy HQ in Woodland Hills, CA

  Aug 5, 20261h 5m

  "If you understand the art at its core it is the art of de-escalation." That is Professor Jay Zeballos, three decades on the mats at the Jean-Jacques Machado Academy in Woodland Hills, describing Brazilian jiu jitsu in terms most practitioners never reach for. Not leverage. Not control. The ability to lower the temperature of a situation, including your own. The argument he makes is a practical one. Grappling gives you options that striking does not, and holding those options is the skill. Most of this conversation is about what that changes once you accept it: how you train, how you teach, and how you carry yourself in the hours you are not on the mat. Zeballos is direct about where responsibility sits. A student's state when they walk out is not an accident of the day they had. It is a product of the room, and the room is built on purpose. He talks about what that requires from an instructor, why people who say they hate jiu jitsu are usually describing a gym rather than an art, and what actually keeps a person coming back after the novelty is gone. The conversation moves through ego, which he treats as a logistics problem rather than a character flaw. There is a place for it and a place it does not belong, and he is specific about both. That leads into the tap, which he frames as information rather than verdict, and into why removing the finish from a training round changes the behavior of everyone on the floor. He also talks about evolution. Thirty years inside a lineage that traces to the source has left him unsentimental about preservation. Technique that stops moving is not tradition. It is just wherever your teacher happened to land. He describes what he has watched change in nogi and in the gi over three decades, and why holding the art still costs you more than it protects. The last stretch of the episode is about longevity. Zeballos turns 60 next year and still trains and teaches full time. He describes deliberately conceding positions to protect his body, adapting a game rather than shrinking it, and what he means by surrender as a training concept rather than a mindset slogan. If you are training past 40 and wondering what the next twenty years look like, this section is the reason to watch. Underneath all of it is his answer to why any of this still requires a person in a room. Jiu jitsu is a feel, and feel is the one thing that does not transfer through a screen. Recorded at the Jean-Jacques Machado Academy headquarters, Woodland Hills, California. Guest: Professor Jay Zeballos Academy: Jean-Jacques Machado Academy, Woodland Hills, CA Website: https://www.jjmachado.com/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/@jayzeballos About Grappling Monthly Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport. The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community. Grappling Monthly publishes across YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and major podcast platforms. Subscribe and turn on notifications. IG www.instagram.com/@grapplingmonthly For sponsorships and collaborations: grapplingmonthly@gmail.com

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  Episode #54

  Enjoy the Ride | What 6 Decades of Judo Training Can Teach You

  Jul 29, 20261h 8m

  Every beginner does the same thing the first time someone tries to throw them. They stiffen. They fight it. They plant their feet and try to make themselves impossible to move. Sensei Kenji Osugi has spent sixty years explaining why that instinct is exactly backwards, and why the person getting thrown is often the one learning the most. Osugi Sensei started judo in the '60s, ten years old, after watching a film and telling his father he wanted in. He lost every match for a full year before he won a single one. That year is where his teaching comes from. He does not train students to study their opponents and hunt for weaknesses on film. He trains them to build a technique so complete that it works no matter who is defending, or how well they see it coming. He learned it from a sensei who won national titles at 145 pounds against men twice his size, on two throws everyone knew were coming. The conversation moves outward from there. How the sport changed when the IJF started asking spectators what they wanted to see, and what got removed to keep judo from looking like wrestling. What eight hours a day in a closed Japanese training hall does to the people who survive it, and what American grapplers tend to misunderstand about the difference between fighting and learning. Why kata, the part most people skip, is the reason judo exists at all. And a quieter thread running underneath all of it: what a lifetime on the mat costs the body, and what Osugi Sensei now tells young athletes he wishes someone had told him. This one is for anyone who trains judo, BJJ, or no-gi and for anyone curious about the generation that carried the art before it was marketed. Sensei Kenji Osugi leads Sawtelle Judo in Los Angeles and continues to teach judo while they're academy searches for a new permanent home. Guest and academy Sensei Kenji Osui - 7th dan Judo black belt https://sawtellejudoschool.com/ About Grappling Monthly Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport. The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community. Grappling Monthly publishes across YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and major podcast platforms. Subscribe and turn on notifications. IG: @grapplingmonthly For sponsorships and collaborations: grapplingmonthly@gmail.com

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  Episode #53

  Culture First | A Conversation with Alex & Howard of The Coop BJJ

  Jul 22, 202638 min

  What happens to a jiu jitsu gym when you remove the head instructor entirely? In this episode of The Grappling Monthly Podcast, we sit down with Alex and Howard, co-founders of The Coop in Culver City, CA, a grappling gym built after their original academy closed during the pandemic. They wanted a room that kept only the parts of jiu jitsu they liked and dropped the rest: no bowing, no set warm ups, no belt hierarchy dictating who learns from whom, and no single professor whose game everyone copies. We cover how promotions actually work when there is no head coach, a peer system requiring seven black belt yes votes and zero objections. We get into their inverted pyramid of black belts, why higher level players at the gym will tell you how to beat their own game, and how a gym that started as a pure open mat had to add just enough structure to get people to show up. Alex and Howard also talk about keeping the gym apolitical through the vaccine era, running it on an honor system with no front desk, and why they think a room designed with as few rules as possible weeds out the wrong people on its own. Check out the www.thecoopbjj.com for more information or find them on instagram at www.instagram.com/thecoopbjj Grappling Monthly is an independent editorial media brand covering the culture, people, and business of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and the grappling arts. Based in Los Angeles, the brand produces in-depth conversations with the coaches, gym owners, competitors, and practitioners shaping the sport. The Grappling Monthly Podcast is the flagship property. A weekly long-form interview series hosted by Sébastien Maniatopoulos, a BJJ black belt establishing roots in the Southern California grappling community. The brand's editorial focus is on the human stories behind the art: how academies are built, how practitioners evolve, how the culture of jiu-jitsu intersects with identity, business, and community. Grappling Monthly publishes across YouTube, Instagram, Substack, and major podcast platforms. Subscribe and turn on notifications. IG and TikTok: @grapplingmonthly For sponsorships and collaborations: grapplingmonthly@gmail.com

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